1882.] 
Literature v. Science. 
701 
piece of knowledge men desire, in the first place, to correlate 
with their necessities. This will be so as long as “ nineteen- 
twentieths of mankind have to ask — not 4 How shall we 
live ?’ but ‘ Can we live at all ?’ ” This, Dr. Beard tells us, 
is the case in Ameriea ; and in Europe, in face of the con- 
tinual stream of emigrants from it to the United States, 
human condition cannot be supposed better. Now certainly 
to these nineteen-twentieths Literature has nothing to offer : 
she never has made two blades of grass grow where one grew 
before, and she never can or will in the future : she never 
slew a fever-germ or a noxious insedt, — never warned us of 
an approaching tempest. 
If we turn from the many to the favoured few who have 
time to ask “ How we shall live?” we find Mr. Arnold is 
guilty of another omission. There is in man a sense for 
truth, quite as strong as the “ sense for condudt and the 
sense for beauty,” of which the ledturer makes such frequent 
mention. To this sense we naturally and instindtively relate 
every new piece of knowledge which we acquire. Is it true ? 
If true, what is its place in the knowledge which we already 
possess ? What can we further infer from it ? What theo- 
ries does it confirm or infirm ? These are the questions 
which we naturally ask. Men as a body do not seek to cor- 
relate any scientific knowledge they may acquire with their 
“ sense for condudt.” Their “ condudt,” if we are to under- 
stand by that their habits and charadter from a moral point 
of view, is for the most part determined by heredity, by early 
training, by the example of friends and neighbours, by the 
presence of public opinion, and is not influenced by the state 
of their scientific attainments. Suppose that to-morrow 
half the so-called elements of chemistry were to be resolved 
into still simpler bodies, would anyone seriously set out on 
the wild-goose chase of seeking to correlate this result with 
ethical principles ? That both ethics and aesthetics may 
perhaps be found to have their root in biology is possible, 
but “ letters ” certainly will not be the finder. It is doubt- 
less true that the love of knowledge for its own sake is not 
the ruling passion with the majority of mankind ; the many 
loye it, if at all, for its utilities. But if Science is to a great 
number of people wearying and unsatisfying, does not this 
depend in many cases on the nature of their education, 
which appeals more to the passion^ and the emotions than 
to the intelledt ? 
Mr. Arnold, after mentioning Darwin as one for whose 
mental cravings “ Science and the domestic affedtions were 
enough,” remarks— 1 “ But then Darwins are very rare. 
